6 Comments

Right now I’m watching the whole armored humvee saga play out. I have a special place in my gut for this one since when I served in Iraq my unit had to create our own impromptu armor out of heavy metal plates with drop down swing doors. Since the non armored humvee has a smaller engine it really slowed us down and made it harder to get out of danger areas as fast. And guess where a bunch of nice new armored humvees were sitting? On bases in Bosnia and Kosovo, where many never even left the base let alone encountered a riot…..

Want to help troops out that dont have what they need. Buy them kevlar blankets and cell phone jammers to block the signal used to set of roadside bombs (i remember one guy who taped down remote control car remotes on the dash, lol

http://www.omarmasry.net Iraq 2.0

I agree, but the army is not always fast to respond.

What surprises me is that this is becoming such an issue now, people have been aware of the need to armor vehicles for some time now.

I got very annoyed at Andrew Sullivan yesterday for his post piling on about this issue; seemed to me he was way out of line in his implication that Rumsfeld isn’t taking the issue seriously.

Today Sullivan has a more disturbing post, with a link to an article on Bloomberg that quotes the manufacturer of the up-armoring saying that they do have more capacity but have not received an order from the Army.

So Sullivan is making Rumsfeld out to be a liar when he said the other day it was simply a matter of “physics” (meaning logistics etc.) not money.

Does anyone have any further insight about this?

Sarah:

Sully does not know what he is talking about. That is why I never read him anymore. There is nothing new about any of this. Humvees were never intended to be armored vehicles. They had to modify existing ones and build new ones with modifications. Everything changes, weight, gas mileage, wear and tear on engines…

I already heard today that there will be more orders but the point is the soldiers we saw on that clip are modifying existing Humvees, not building new ones.

What Sully is talking about is new humvee/truck assembly and the reason they had not pushed for the additional increase had something to do with ceramic components. They have already increased from 15 to 450. In other words it is more difficult and complicated than Sully knows. So now they will go ahead and order more, I suppose there will be a substitution or down grade or something. I know I read elsewhere that the problem was not assembly, they had excess capacity for assembly, it had to do with ceramic components and the time [18 months] involved in building new furnaces. Sorry I have no link. I think I read that at littlegreenfootballs.com

But I heard a General in Kuwait today say that no soldier was being sent into combat without armor on the Humvees. I would imagine that the soldiers there will still be using whatever they can find though to put on the Humvees they have.

Sarah,

The article quotes the company saying that they have, IIRC, the ability to increase their output of armored humvees by something on the order of an additional 25% over what they have already expanded to which, again IIRC, is 8 or 9 times their original capicity. That does not mean the humvees are sitting around in motor pools waiting to be sent off to this company.

Military procurement and the logistics to send humvees off for armoring is not like turning on a spigot. Could more be done faster – almost certainly. Nothing indicates that the military or the SecDef does not take this matter seriously – they’ve been doing so quite some time now. Sullivan has gone over to the condemn for anything and everything side. Nothing will make him happy other than gay marriage. He’s got a bug up his butt and is no longer (hasn’t been for quite some time) worth paying attention to.

Omar,

I used to read your blog, but then you stopped posting. What’s up?